Sold to The Masterworks Foundation, Bermuda
Dodge MacKnight (American, 1860-1950)
Lantana Grounds, Somerset Parish, Bermuda
Circa 1915
Watercolor on paper, 16-1/2 x 23 inches, sight
Courtesy of Brock & Co.

Ranked with contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer as one of the top American watercolorists at the turn of the twentieth century, Dodge MacKnight was critically acclaimed for his vibrant Fauve-inspired color palette and lively brushwork. His work, most notably flag-bedecked city street scenes and landscapes derived from his travels, readily sold out during annual one-man exhibitions at Boston's Doll & Richards Gallery from 1888 to 1896. His popularity continued into the 1920s, only waning when he stopped painting altogether after the deaths of his wife and child in 1931.

Prestigious Boston art patrons of the era such as Isabella Stewart Gardner and Desmond Fitzgerald were avid collectors of MacKnight's watercolors. Fitzgerald, an engineer who arranged for the famous 1913 Armory Show to travel to Boston, displayed 300 MacKnight watercolors alongside Monets, Renoirs, and Sargents in his rambling Brookline, Mass., home. This Bermuda watercolor comes from Fitzgerald's collection.